Well, Google has responded: and their answer is, 'well, yeah, OK, fair enough.' In a blog post, Google said that while they've worked hard to prevent out-and-out spam from polluting the results, they haven't done enough to combat 'content farms' which churn out search-friendly material specifically designed to appear higher in search results than it really ought to.

In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we’re not perfect, and combined with users’ skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better.

This could be bad news for the thousands of unemployed journalists and bored home-makers who scrape a living writing for content farms. But it's probably good news for everyone else.